001I'm a call to order the regular business meeting to the St Louis Park School Board for March 12 we are gathered on the land of Dakota and ojibway peoples I ask you to join me in acknowledging the D Dakota and ojibway Community their Elders both past and present as well as future Generations St Louis Park schools also acknowledges that it was founded upon exclusions and erasur of many indigenous peoples including those on Whose land the school district is located this acknowledgement demonstrates a commitment to to dismantling the ongoing legacies of colonial power and a District's desire to support the ongoing work of local indigenous communities to thrive in our schools okay so the next thing is the approval of the agenda and on the agenda we have superintendence report we have one discussion item which
002is the Strategic plan 20232 24 priority work midyear update um we have two things on the action agenda which are the approval of the achievement and integration budget for fiscal year 25 and a 20204 2025 school calendar revised action item that we will be talking about followed by Communications and transmitt do I have a motion to move the agenda that's red all right there we go did you get that uh any discussion all those in favor say I I any opposed passes 70 okay then I will uh turn it over to the superintendent for superintendent report thank you uh I want to begin the report by sharing the mission tonight at our work and it's the reason that we gather our mission in St Louis Park public schools we see Inspire and Empower each learner
003to live their Brilliance in an environment that centers student voice and experience um to create racially Equitable learning that energizes and enhances the spirit of our community I want to share there's so much to be hopeful and optimistic about in St Louis Park public schools by the way but I want to share one thing that I am super optimistic and hopeful about that I hope you will be too I'm very excited exced about this work and that is the work to create a new vision for digital learning right you're surprised right Sarah I can see it so here we go uh I want to share some exciting work that we're doing to create a new vision for technology enriched learning like many school districts we entered the pandemic without a onetoone technology plan and we
004were forced to create distance learning systems on the fly as many school districts were currently as a result to that we have a variety of devices in place and use at various levels and we don't necessarily have a coherent vision for how to guide staff in the use of educational technology now a team of Staff members is working to create a robust vision and plan for technology enriched learning while this work is still in progress It's likely that the new plan will include components like this uh infrastructure and access which is about the foundational connectivity obviously technical support reliability and accessibility assessment measurement of digital hardware and software which includes Audits and evaluation of physical digital tools and online resources professional development in order to empower Educators with the necessary skills and knowledge to effectively
005integrate technology into their teaching practice curriculum and content integration because a well-designed digital learning plan incorporates technology seamlessly into the curriculum enhancing rather than replacing traditional teaching methods anti-racist personalized learning a digital learning plan should emphasize personalized learning experiences enabling Educators to differentiate instruction based on the individual needs of students adaptive learning platforms data analytics and assessment tools can be leverage to track student progress identify areas of improvement and provide targeted interventions to support each student's unique Learning Journey lastly a component typically that you would find in a robust uh technology enhanced learning plan is the idea of digital citizenship and Online safety obviously and mental well-being because we don't have an updated technology plan in place at this time we're lacking some of the structures and processes that could be in place to support
006teachers to Maxim and to maximize financial investments a new Rob bust plan and vision will guide decisions around the use of our Levy Revenue Capital purchases software purchases curriculum and instruction development professional development and more uh this is super exciting work and it will serve SLP schools well into the future uh we are just in the process now of drafting and getting feedback from staff members and input from staff members we'll go through several iterations of a plan before uh it's fin finalized and then we'll flush it out and begin to use it for decision making so more to come CH thank you good evening chair Cox and members of the board and superintend intendent Maguire uh I am Dr Becca star I'm the data scientist and title coordinator here at the district and today
007I'm here to share some data that we've collected so far this year on our priority work and I just want to reiterate the mission statement since that is the foundation of our priority work uh St Louis Park of our community and so through the care team process which I'll talk about first and then the second one is um retention of Staff of color so Priority One culturally relevant literacy through the care team process the goal here is to sustain and deepen culturally relevant literacy development through the collaborative action research for Equity or the care team process so first what is culturally relevant literacy we use Goldie Muhammad's five Pursuits as evidence of cultural re relevant literacy in our work and the you can see the five Pursuits up on the screen the first is skills
008which is what we think of of content area or the standards that students are learning identity is when students learn about their themselves and others intellectualism is really building knowledge and critical thinking about that knowledge criticality involves engaging student thinking about power equity and disruption of Oppression and joy is the joy of learning or the elevation of the Mind energy and spirit and just a little bit about what a care team does so each grade level team and Department team across the district forms basically an action research question to look at throughout the semester so they do two cycles a year and you can see in the figure just kind of the general process at the top the team will develop a vision for racial equity and then they'll formulate a research a researchable question
009based on their students and their data they'll design some type of culturally relevant lesson or activity to implement in their classroom and then they'll Implement that and collect data which they will then analyze and reflect on um and figure out what the implications are for changing their practice so what we did was I asked all for the first part of gathering data I asked all of the building leaders to send me all the documentation that their care teams had so specifically I wanted to know what the researchable questions were what kind of activities um or lessons they were implementing and then if they had any findings or Reflections um so I gathered all of that information and the first thing I wanted to do was look at the 71 care team questions that I received
010and I wanted to look for evidence of those five Pursuits so you can see in the table that I found evidence for skills in 31 of those questions identity showed up in 19 of them Joy um was looked at in eight of them and then three of them talked about um things reflecting intellectualism and I didn't find evidence of criticality in the the questions or the activities of the documentation um but that doesn't mean that it didn't show up somewhere I just I didn't see it in the documentation one thing that I noticed patterns across the buildings um so Elementary teams were almost exclusively focused on skills specifically reading skills the middle school team was teams were really focused on identity and there was evidence of intellectualism in some of the high school questions so
011just to dig in a little bit deeper the elementary schools most of the Care teams were like I said really focused on reading skills and they were implementing different curricula and then looking at those curricula assessments as well as fastbridge and map Reading data to look at reading outcomes for their students and just to show that it wasn't solely um focused on skills there like some examples of other Pursuits found in the elementary school documentation um there was a quote observing excuse me me observing and celebrating with joy when we can apply a strategy to reading a new word and I also want to um be clear that a lot of the teams sent me um daily lessons that were explicitly incorporating in the five Pursuits even if they weren't necessarily specifically tied to their
012care teams work the middle school teams all wrote questions about the concept of belonging so each team gave students a pr- survey about their feelings of belonging uh they then use those results to provide a variety of activities focused on increasing student sense of belonging so just some examples of what different teams did they would talk to the focal students one-on-one about their survey responses uh they would work on intentionally building relationships both teacher student relationships as well as peer-to-peer student relationships they would allow student choice and how they showcase their brilliant in the ways that are most motivating to them um sometimes they would encourage students to share their cultur backgrounds and incorporate cultural identities into their lessons and just some of the reflections from the middle school teams student voice seemed to increase
013a sense of belonging and commun students valued connection and representation to activities such as being able to share their cultural food their stories their holidays asking students to share their identities increases feelings of being seen and heard and bipo which is black indigenous people of color bipo students were more engaged when paired to work with other bipo students as opposed to working with their white peers at the high school level um here's an example of a question that um included intellectualism how can we more explicitly teach critical thinking skills to impact the student experience so just as an example one group had students synthesized two different texts while applying their own critical thinking and experiences to the text and a reflection from that team was that critical thinking needs to be explicitly taught and scaffolded
014another example um was identity that they had multilingual students engage in activities and lessons designed around exploring their identities and here's just some examples on this page of the activities that they did and you can see they kind of like were able to map out their identities um looking at their life map as just some examples of what the students did to explore their identities and the team reflect Ed that the multilingual students were really engaged and interested in in doing these activities where they could explore their identities okay so that's the data on the priority one if we have any questions or comments and just a reminder I forgot to do this earlier don't forget to use the microphones out I um I have a question so for the middle school and the high
015school it seemed like there were some findings that you shared here or sort of how it worked out um but I didn't see that necessarily on the elementary side I know you said they focused on reading skills which makes a ton of sense it's very foundational but what in terms of outcomes were they reporting back so I didn't specifically get outcomes but Dr Lafayette will be presenting on um map and fast data in a couple of weeks I'm sharing with that and that will give some insight into that but they didn't have like specific Reflections in their documentation at this time okay thank you yes okay then well that that seems to be it so far so uh you can go ahead and and speak to the to the next item okay so the second
016priority this year is retention of Staff of color the goal is to develop a retention strategy that amplifies the voices perspectives and needs of Staff of color leading to a safer more empowered and fulfilling culture of belonging focused on retaining racially conscious staff so the first thing we wanted to do to work on this priority was to hear the voices of our staff of color and listen to their perspectives so we administered a a survey just to staff of color so it went out to 175 staff of color we received back 64 responses and the response rate was 36.6% which is actually a really good response response rate for this type of survey so we we were happy with that and just to give you uh the racial breakdown of the respondents you can see
017almost 30% were black or African-American about 27% um identify as two or more races 23.4% Hispanic or Latino and then about 16% Asian or Pacific Islander and there was one that was um my in descent and the others were a couple left it blank the first thing that we wanted to ask them about was racial Affinity groups so just a little bit of background um prior to the pandemic St Louis Park schools held some racial Affinity groups for staff of color together for discussion camaraderie and fun and these spaces were found to be valuable to some but they were unable to accommodate all staff of color and they were not sustained so this year we wanted to ask staff of color about their interest and their ability to attend an affinity group and what they
018would like to see in one so these are a series of statements that they were asked to rate their level of agreement on as a fivepoint scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree and I've just kind of condensed it to make it a little bit easier to kind of see the overall patterns and so the top statement says I would value the opportunity to spend time with other staff of color and 84.4% of respondents agreed or strong strongly agreed with that statement um racial Affinity groups would be beneficial to the district as a whole 78 % agreed racial Affinity groups would benefit me in terms of learning and or work and then the next one is in terms of camaraderie and or fun that was right around 69 70% agreement with those statements and then
01969% I would be interested in participating in a racial affinity group we asked them how would or how could racial Affinity groups benefit you and your peers and these are just some of the most frequent responses so 25 say they that it would build community they'd get to know staff other staff of color form connections the next was that the opportunity to share experiences they talked about sharing lived experiences challenges that they're facing a place to be heard seen welcomed where places where they could be their authentic selves and so on and here's just some of the responses having racial Affinity groups empowers the district to address and Tackle racial issues that affect our community by engaging in dialogue and organizing Collective action these groups become platforms for advocacy education and social change within our
020specific racial community and Beyond they can provide a powerful voice to raise awareness about racial injustices challenge stereotypes and promote inclusivity and equity in broader Society um we asked what they would see is like the challenge the largest challenge reported was just kind of logistics like finding the time schedules varying schedules um finding the space to hold the groups but staff of color are interested in seeing a space for holding these discussions social activities connections sharing food um some said that they would like to see these groups offered at a variety of different times and a couple mentioned that they would like to see an agenda or a purpose for each meeting they thought that might make it more productive and they also thought that that might um keep it sustained over a longer period
021of time the next thing that we asked them about is kind of school culture so again just as background there were some focus groups with staff of color conducted back in 2016 and some findings from those focus groups where that staff of color see a lot of whiteness culture in the schools wondering about whether and how we talk about race with students and feelings of being heard but not understood in addition staff of color on the courageous conversations protocol to be helpful again so these are some current results from um the survey we just did so this year um discussion of race and racial identity has increased in classrooms in the past few years about 67% agreed with that statement discussion of race and racial identity has increased just in the workplace more generally um
022about 66% awareness of the presence of whiteness either at the sites or in the workplace more generally 52 to 55% agreed with those statements I can think of examples of whiteness being identified in our sites about 55% and then structures behaviors and beliefs rooted in whiteness have begun to be addressed um about 41% agreed with that and about 22% did not agree with that we ask them please describe your perspective on the presence of whiteness in our schools in any ways that you see that things are improving or not improving at St Louis Park schools and I just want to acknowledge that um as I read through these responses um and trying to summarize them and represent these voices I just want to acknowledge that I as a white woman um member of the administration
023um a parent and member of the community it's it's all being synthesized Through My Lens and I just want to acknowledge that and I just hope that I've done a good job of um representing what they what they say what they said so 42 responded to this question and only three cited examples of improvement and those examples were that one building leader in particular disrupts whiteness more staff of color are being hired and that they saw instances of allowing for multiple ways of being in the classroom so allowing movement calling out answers allowing for engagement based on individual student needs and then an additional respondent said that staff are finding ways to address whiteness but they did not give specific examples the same question uh the most frequent response was that awareness conversation and discussion
024is increasing but no real change is happening four said that whiteness is pervasive and not improving and four said there's a lack of diversity in leadership 17 response gave some examples of uh whiteness in our schools so these these statements were said more than once leaders of color get resistance and blame the inaction of white leaders like avoiding discussions only staff of color keep the conversations about race going teachers are sometimes afraid to talk to black students or hold them accountable they're making assumptions based on race for example when they see a student in the hallway and they might give White students by not students of color chances to correct mistakes one person said leaders of color along with a few white leaders are often the ones that have to carry the weight of dismantling
025racist systems and then explaining it to our familyes students and teachers I feel I will always be looked at through a microscope and judged off of my actions or past situations or incidents way worse than white males or my white colleagues and then the next thing we asked um our staff of color was about their current experience here at St Louis Park schools we asked them about how they feel here at St Lou Park schools we tried to get at their intention to stay here what they like about working here the challenges that they face working here and what would help them feel included safe and or empowered here at St Louis Park School so here we see some more of the statements um the top one is intention I intend to continue to work
026in the district for the foreseeable future 56.3% agreed or strongly agreed with that statement I feel like I belong here at St Louis Park schools I feel empowered to be my authentic self and I feel safe it's like 50 to 56% agree on those statements I feel to speak my Truth at work 48% feel empowered to make anti-racist changes about 44% districtwide professional development focused on racial Equity has improved school and work for staff of color we've got um higher level of disagreement than agreement about 30% agree 31% disagree and I believe that half of color feel more understood at work than we did a few years ago about a quarter agree and 28% um did not agree with that statement we ask some what they like about working here and this is um order
027of frequency of responses um most frequent at the top they like their staff their colleagues their team the mission statement our commitment to racial Equity the students the community diversity and the size of the district and so on one of the as that I truly appreciate about working in the St Louis Park School District is a sense of community that permeates throughout it is a place where all members including students parents and staff come together to create a supportive and inclusive environment we ask them what they find challenging about working at St Louis Park schools um many of them said something about the environment being unhealthy for them so like they described it as white spaces having no alike peers sometimes feeling like the token person of color and again like we saw before about
02812% said talk without action is challenging not feeling heard seen or valued teachers who resist change and are not held accountable about 10% behavior issues or a lack of consequences for students and I just want to be clear that this wasn't um racially marked and we've seen in other areas in the district we have data that um behavior issues or lack of consequences also applies to the white student slow change or not seeing change Etc I am unsure that we are truly walking the walk when it comes to enforcing our racial Equity strategic plan I believe that there's a lot of performative anti-racism occurring in our buildings being the only person of color on my team I feel that conversations surrounding racial Equity can become dangerous very quickly I'm usually the only person on my
029team to advocate for students of color we ask them what would help you feel more included safe and or empowered at St Louis Park schools increase diversity representation in staff leadership curriculum extracurricular activities was the number one answer feeling like their voice is heard and valued um some type of community or affinity group calling out aggressions in the moment accountability for White staff and so on the last uh kind of category that we asked them about was supervisor support um so here the the top two lines are about what they think about their own supervisor so my supervisor is committed to the district Mission and strategic plan my supervisor creates a climate of inclusion and safety for staff of color that was about um you know 61% to 69% agreed or strongly agreed with those
030statements but then when you ask what they think about all the other supervisors in the district you can see that the agreement was much lower so 39% 33% agreed that other supervisors are committed to the district Mission and plan and creating the climate of inclusion and safety for staff of color and then about 56% agreed that their supervisor Works to support each employee in their unique needs in order to feel included respected and able to do their best work when asked what they need from their supervisors to feel seen and heard these were some of the responses to create a space for conversations and check-ins hear our voices listen acknowledge take action educate self interrupt see value and support follow through with what you say you're going to do acknowledge local and world events and
031be okay with conflict and I just wanted to leave with um this response from that same question acknowledgement districtwide and CommunityWide about how race shows up in every space for bipac educators our educators of color are hurting unpack the reality of racial Equity work being implemented and how it lives on paper but is it being operationalized Interruption and calling in a of colleagues that are unwilling to do the work at their sites the heavy lifting cannot be on the backs of black and brown individuals and then just kind of really briefly next steps this work that we're doing um will'll inform our thinking and identifying the priority work for the next school year 2425 we'll be collecting a second round of data on care teams this spring and we'll be working with staff of color
032to develop a a strategy for retention thank you thank you Dr star um a couple of things here before we get to board questions one of which we'll be taking a short break around 7:17 tonight from about 7:17 to 727 so if that um we may have to pause questions at that point um another thing to um share is that this was information that was shared with um cabinet um already so cabinet has heard this information and have started to process it so I think um I'm assuming that there's lots of questions that people have and lots of wonderings that people have and I think some of those came out in some of the cabinet meetings as well and uh or in the in the cabinet meeting and um so one of the things that
033um we're thinking might be most helpful right now is to kind of focus on what um maybe like one or two not one or two things that you noticed and one or two things that you wondered about as we were listening to this presentation in presenting that information of course if you have questions about methodology or you have some other broader questions it's okay but I think if we can kind of help make sure that we're moving the conversation along and not creating too many more questions here so um and so I I've asked um director Casey if she would share some of her thoughts she's somebody who's been working through some of the Strategic plan I think the longest in in some of the earlier um iteration so I was going to start with
034director Casey and you don't if you're still wondering about this stuff don't feel like you have to come up with a question right now we're we're we can all follow up as needed but it's a lot of information to take in so if you want to process this information think about it and ask some of those questions or um um you know make a comment at a later time I think that's totally fine too I just want to make this a space that you can we can share this information we can share these Reflections back to Dr star and to to the rest of administration but um realize that this is the beginning of the conversation here so pass to director casy yeah I don't really have you know super special Insight but what I
035I wanted to say was just to for those who haven't seen these kind of priority work statements before like what purpose do they serve right in our strategic plan is a multi-year plan and it is specific but not super specific right like it doesn't have very specific annual goals these are our annual goals so every year two or three we've had more than that but two 4 three is good usually um goals that should be you know more or less um attainable in a year so that's what we see every year we get them from the superintendent and from and cabinet and the board sees them and then you know um that and then at the end of the year which is kind of what we're starting right now is assessing where we at on
036those and then how do they take us into the next year so um I just that was pretty much all I wanted to say and I'll just share my I guess my takeaway is just like I'm really grateful for the Educators who have like shared this because it's vulnerable and um it's it isn't it I'm I'm sure it doesn't always I mean I think Dr star you you identified right you're seeing it through your you're sharing it through your lens you're also sharing it to you know a majority white board a white superintendent right like so there is there is that um courage that is involved in just sharing sharing these um their their feelings and perspectives so we're grateful for for that um and could you go back to the just the statement the
037priority work statement the the very beginning the very beginning yeah so my my wondering isn't really it's not really a wondering I'm breaking the rules sorry it's an ask and you already kind of teed this up in your on your last slide but like I think that what this what we' what we see here is a lot of information that helps um sort of frame up right like the perspectives the needs but we don't have a strategy right like that's that that is not attained in this year which is fine right like that it doesn't always happen in a year and this is a big one um but I think we have a lot of a lot of really good um pieces that that speak to the the rest of that that that priority work
038statement so I guess my ask would be yeah like not only you know working you know informing our thinking in in identify and priority work like this is the priority work I that that be my my thinking is that like the ask would be that that strategy is the work um now we can't just let this be perspectives that's all I got I have I don't know where you want to go first you know I think there's again there's no pressure for everybody to speak and again because there's a lot of information to take in so it's just open to to those who want to speak and so director Davis if you would like to Sure uh thank you for this it's very helpful and uh provides a lot of insight and I'd Echo what
039an said in terms of um the time and energy and vulnerability of our staff of color and contributing to this I'm I think my biggest wondering is what what does it look like to develop a strategy like I saw that on your next step where work with staff of color to develop a strategy for retention but I also saw throughout that this work like the burden of this shouldn't and and this something like I think we all believe strongly should not fall on the backs of our black and brown staff and so what is the plan if there is one or what are sort of the foundational aspects of how you intend to move this forward to developing um a retention strategy that honors the contributions that have been made that create space for Meaningful
040engagement and leadership from our staff of color but doesn't burden shift mhm yeah we haven't discussed specifics yet but we have discussed um so our group started out um with Communications HR and um research and we talked about you know based on these responses trying to develop a few sort of um we can Implement a few things maybe over the summer and try to see but we want to get the perspective of the cabinet we want to get the perspective we actually at the end of the survey actually maybe we didn't end up putting that in about we discussed um putting in saying you know if you would like to help us you know talk further about this and join like the committee to do that we definitely want to have some representation of the
041staff of color um but you're right it's going to be multiple voices working together um from the different departments and the staff and across buildings I think um but that's all the work that is ahead of us to do you want to add anything I'll just join you up here yeah thanks yeah um yeah so like like Dr star mentioned the idea for the next step is really to develop this retention strategy right first we had to reveal and understand what is the current reality before we can jump into a strategy right the strategy is the technical piece and then living it out is the Adaptive piece just like a technical piece would be writing a really cool mission statement that's anti-racist but now living it out is the Adaptive work um and so that's
042why we wanted to take the time to understand the multiple racial perspectives before bringing together the focal group of people that are interested in joining which would be voluntary based and so that would be the next step we talked about in that particular collaboration is to then recruit whoever wants to be a part of um developing the retention strategy and I think it's also really important I mean we've asked similar questions before and then not really moved on it so we're really it's really important for us to be intentional about now doing something with we ask them to give our their current perspectives and we don't want to just let that sit it's really important thank you uh I don't I don't really have a qu well I have a question but um maybe it's
043not to be answered tonight but I'm just curious what it meant by the accountability for white teachers being heeld accountable like with the microaggressions what might what does that look like and feel like maybe and just out of curiosity and um support for building leaders to to put that structure of accountability into place um so that would be my curiosity I also just want um to thank you for the the work that you've done and um thinking about this and the importance of digging into this um I think that when we talk about I I I think this is just I don't I don't really really know where I'm going with this other than to say um this is important work and we can't always dedicate like time to do it so I'm super grateful
044that we have figured out how to do that and that we have the capacity in our leadership to be able to do this so I am grateful for that and I'm grateful for your team so thank you thank you and again there's no pressure and it and I'm happy with this amount of dialogue here just people are sharing and I know that again people are processing um and I was one of the things that that I was wondering as I was going through this is is sort of how do you um I I'm wondering about how this feels um building to building and I think we saw hints of that or how you have Affinity groups within a building because sometimes you may not have that much diversity in one building or you may be
045over represented in the building or you know how those different things feel too so there's there's part of me that sort of disc curious about that and I think that's true of any organization I think we're fortunate that we only have I think seven eight buildings what do we have primarily that we focus in but um but um that's still a lot that's still a and just a you know so it just makes me wonder about some of those things so I had a thing that I noticed but I forgot I I thought I Jed it out but um that was just one of the things I had me wondering um as I went through the data on the responses there there were there were some responses that mentioned Desiring that connection across buildings and
046being able to to work with um you know find Affinity I guess with other staff of color more across the district instead of just in their own buildings so that was expressed I go I don't have a question but first I want to thank you for the data speaks itself it didn't come surprise to me to because some of the challenge you know seeing da life to now you know what member seeing not seeing changes that goes slow uh there's a lot of things but the question is what are we going to do we have the data now it doesn't make any sense every like every two years four years we col the data you do nothing with it so MH MH and that's part what it comes well I mean I don't know if
047anybody else has other comments can yeah okay go ahead hi and thank you um so my question is on how many platforms or how many ways was the survey available Rachel so again the communication strategy with um engaging our staff of color was through direct communication um so this was about a month period of time that we collected possibly a little bit more a month and a half five weeks that we collected responses from staff of color um so it was mostly through direct communication individuals um self-identified themselves racially and then through with Partners in our HR department we collected a list of individuals so most of it was text message and direct email communication we also had broader communication to District staff as a whole through the flow which is our districtwide weekly staff
048newsletter that was just informing everyone like this is part of our strategic priority work um we'll be asking staff of color to participate in this survey our original goal that's written into the priority work for this year was to have 50% of Staff of color engage in the survey so we're at 36 37% so each time we sent a communication out um I I kind of get a status check of like where are we at do we need to continue to do some more direct communication um and about like three or four weeks into the survey we're really trying to push some of the participation made some requests from our school leadership as well to um make sure that staff of color knew that they were welcome to participate in the survey and we did
049have some questions and and some concerns as well about um how Anonymous the survey really was and so there were a couple of touch points when we went back and further communicated that there would be only two individuals that would see the survey data um Dr star and do Dr Lafayette and um and also just that we made a modification after the first communication went out to um include roles but remove the location so that if there are very few staff of color in a certain role at a building that that would keep their um their responses Anonymous thank you thank you thank you and um I just want to offer some feedback so oh so I spoke with some of our bipac um staff and I was trying to encourage them to do the
050survey once I saw the survey was out and a few of them said that they didn't like um the idea of doing a survey they felt that it wasn't personal enough and they would they would rather like to have a group discussion thank you for that feedback all right so I think that's what we have for questions again we need to recess about 717 so I think we'll go ahead and take a short break right now anyway so that we don't have to break during the middle of the um action item so we will take a break until 7:27 and we'll be back at 7:27 thank you e are you ready um we just have two things on our action agenda here and uh the first item on our action agenda is approval of the
051achievement and integration budget the school year 25 it is recommended that the school board approve the district's achievement and integration budget for fiscal year 2025 is presented I'm going take some motions and then we'll have discussion if need be so do I have a motion to move this so moved so move by Virginia do I have second second by an okay discussion uh is there a Dr Duffy something to present to us questions Dr Duffy just available to answer questions um if board members have questions or achievement integration plan is a three-year plan we're in the second year going into the second year and just the budget has to be approved by the board each year so the board would have um seen the plan last year and just the budget goes in every year
052around March 15th actually on March 15th and I don't know if youve done Dr Duffy can certainly answer questions if you had any questions no I know we I remember seeing this the plan last year and we had a a presentation about the plan so if anybody wanted to look at the whole plan this is kind of just like the annual check box for the budget sweet all right I have I'm sorry I have one question on the budget um Dr if you're available and Jo oh yeah I'm sorry I forgot um I have one question on the budget or to repeat myself with the microphone on um it talks about um the different line items here about I'm sorry I'm turning my head because it's sideways on my screen um and I know I've
053received a lot of questions about the elementary uh math and literacy support instruction and so I wondered if you could use this as an opportunity to talk about the way this budget support yes so um the achievement and integration budget is um set up to provide one additional instructional assistant for math and reading support for the next three years at each elementary school so we've been hearing that that's something that is being requested by our teachers and it's something that we wanted to be responsive to in this grant so is that somebody somebody who pushes into the classroom to student someone someone that pushes into the class room and helps support small groups helps support the teacher um in whatever way they can with interdisciplinary literacy math and reading support thank you you're welcome all
054right so no other questions then all those in favor say I I any opposed passes 70 all right that brings us up to the next item on our action agenda we have uh Dr M here it is r that the school board approved the revised 2024 25 school year calendar as presented Dr MC will explain that but first before we do that can I have a motion to move this so moved so moved by director Casey oh you you're gonna second it all right seconded by uh director Anderson and um discussion time here thank you board members I appreciate your patience because this calendar has been in front of you I think this might be the third time perhaps the fourth but for sure the third time so I appreciate your patience the last calendar
055that you had in front of you included this concept of digital learning days I foreshadowed for you that mde had um shared with us that there was some additional guidance coming around digital learning days for all school districts in the state of Minnesota and in fact due to their word that guidance came uh not necessarily what we wanted to hear but guidance nonetheless so there are some additional parameters now that have been placed on digital learning days and the definition of the digital learning day for us us if we used the day in the way we had intended would not have counted for an instructional day if we decreased the number of instructional days at the high school level um if we had kept all of them the way they were we would have had
056a razor thin margin on meeting requirements right for your minimum instructional hours at the high school level so in consultation with human resources with the high school principal with the Middle School principal we just modified that digital learning day concept step for next year uh by reversing course on two of them and putting them back to be instructional days and then maintaining two uh that will not be counted as instructional days because we don't want to change what we were going to do with those days so that gives us a better cushion if there were to be snow days for example next year uh so that we would have the appropriate number of instructional hours at the high school level just because we're changing for this year doesn't mean there aren't possibilities for the future
057in fact our new digital learning plan when we get it could further inform whether or not we develop an e-learning plan which I think we should that will probably be part of the new digital learning plan uh or digital learning days so it doesn't prohibit us in future years from doing something like this uh just we'll have more time to consider it so those are the key changes you'll see it's only on those digital learning days for the middle school and high school that is the only change on this calendar I want to reemphasize this is 2425 calendar year we're well into 20 23 24 calendar year and also um this is what I'm hearing the big takeaway is that for people's calendars if they started to plan things things aren't really changing in terms
058of end of the year graduation any of those things all of that information stays the same it's just what we're doing with those stat any other questions from board members here calendar what were the days that were changed I think I was trying to look on here but I couldn't quite read the figure it out from the color coding thank you um I can share that for the middle school we had identified November 15th and April 18th those will be non student days school will not be in session on these two days at the middle school and it will not be counted as an instructional day so those were digital learning days that were we can't call digital learning days cuz we can't count them buiness instructional days we're just going to call them non-instructional
059days so students will not be in session uh the other two days that were listed as digital learning days on the calendar you'll still see at the middle school those are going to be regular student contact instructional days for the high school October 11th and March 14th will be non student days so those were the two days that we had identified as digital learning days that now uh will not be they're just going to be non student days school will not be in session on those two days the high school and it will not be counted as an instructional day uh the other two days that were listed as digital learning days for the high school will be regular student contact instructional days regular days of school there's one to be determined Day digital learning
060day we're still going to keep at the high school level and that will be the same thing that we do every year around ACT Testing which we just had a week or so at the high school thank you sorry don't for your I don't know may ask question yeah absolutely thank you I don't um I don't mean to ask a question about something that we've already seen a billion times but um Dr McGuire did some of those digital uh learning days were they around parent teacher conferences yes and I don't know how many years in the past you've had this concept of digital learning days but you had them in place on the calendar for this year so this is the only year familiar with and uh this year some were used at the middle
061school and high school around parent engagement type activities which was awesome uh but we did it in a way that it um counted we counted as instructional days now the new guidance would not have us do that it won't allow us to have teachers engaged with other activities like professional development on those days which is what we had hoped and many other school districts had hoped uh as as far as I know now from querying the 42 other metro area superintendents there are very very few school districts that will utilize digital learning days for next year I think people are just going to kind of try to figure it out to see if there's something that might be done for future years digital learning days should not be confused with e-learning days e-learning days are
062the ones where you have an approved plan for snow literally weather extreme weather days I just and I you know like moving forward and our mom would be attest to this I've had parent teacher conferences for the last two weeks and I have to teach on the days that I have them and I have to teach on the next day and it is I cannot my brain is turning into mush so anything that we can figure out to help teachers so that they and I and I get that you get it but I'm just saying and to all of the audience that it is critically important um I don't know there are important and I hope that we can come up with a cool um new digital technology kind of platform and I totally get
063the idea of not replacing but enhancing education and things like that but um it is a disservice to my students to have to show up after working 13 and a half hours and then teach for another seven so I just wanted to put that out there all right any other comments here we've we've had a motion we've had a second so uh we've had a discussion so beyond that I will call for a vote all those in favor say I I any opposed no or sorry say no no that passes 70 that's going to be too easy all right um we are up to um Communications and transm so you go first okay don't forget the mic oh thank you you're welcome yeah uh I visit the high school last last week uh with uh
064Dr Maguire one one of our regular visit so we walk the hallway we greet everyone who comes students uh teachers uh with the principal Anisha uh I have learned uh number of programs which I will share with you uh the first one was good news uh there was uh on March six students uh who attended uh did the test act 320 out of 307 that means 90 percentage which increased from last year uh the other good news I have is uh the high school is testing product called smart pass which is will be implemented next year uh that smart pass is a digital system which allows the administrator uh to monitor the students in the hallway in the other locations during the glass time uh those systems always I mean already using Bridgefield SLE and
065other districts uh I believe those smart system will will be step to increase school safety uh also we also visit uh director of atic uh dor and the E to review the data student participation in uh Sports we learned uh also the import of each all week doing another middle school and elementary schools to encourage uh students to participate those activities uh we also visit uh NTA which is uh nontraditional academic which is very interesting I like the class uh NTA is the program students tribe for nontraditional environment Center uh student direct inter uh disciplinary and Community work dialogue they were having that day I think food and culture and the attendance was very high I'm glad I was there and I was thank uh Dr M and the principal for showing me those cool
066stuffff thank you one more thing I always do that uh this today is my second day of Ramadan so I just want to wish Community students uh Muslims uh here at home and around the globe of I will say Ramadan muak with that I'm going to conclude thank you all right director Casey did you sure um I lucky enough this year to get to be the liais on to both the L senior program and the Early Learning parent advisory committee and also coincidentally they meet on the second Tuesday of the month just like our board so I had both of them today so I've done the full gamut of lifelong learning here in St Louis par today um and I just want to report like that the both of those um both of those groups
067are thriving and doing amazing programming our seniors are um putting on another senior resource fair this um spring Colin and I worked at it last year we had a table and they they said that they had um such a good participation last year which was only their first year that they have um some of the sponsors are actually like paying more to to come back um like upping their sponsorship level so that they can come back because it was so successful they had a lot of people it must have been um valuable for the for the folks who came because there were lots of different um you know like residences and services nonprofits all kinds of different Pro providers of services so that'll be that's coming up in it's not until June but that's their
068one of their big programs for the year um The Early Learning Program it just brings me back to like our days at Central but there they have um birthday programming coming up they have um an Aztec dancing presentation on April 18th at 6 pm. and they have um they're working to really increase participation on their general meeting so instead of having everyone come you know every month they have kind of a steering committee that comes monthly and then three or four times a year they have a general meeting where they provide child care they provide dinner and um really kind of an open and really welcoming atmosphere for parents to come in and they really have increased their participation and the um and the representation I think of the of the family members who come
069um so just great stuff all around I'm it's just it's been a good day um to be with our to be with our whole gamut of of programming so that's what I've got I'm Theon for Peter Hobart and I just wanted to remind everyone that the imagination fair is on Friday so you should go out and support um the students even if your student didn't participate um I've been to quite a few of these because my kids are in the district and um this is really a space where we get to see their brilliance in their creativity what time it's at 6:30 yep so yeah please come out and support thank you um I um the Lea is on to Park Spanish Immersion and a couple things going on there first of all the um
070silent auction is open until Friday yes that is my favorite yes so check that out um wait I like the COA one too I I mean I think they're all great right so there's a lot of opportunity there but it's it's it's only open until Friday and so if you want to get in on that you got to get online um and then tomorrow night I'm sorry Thursday night correct uh Thursday night March 14th there's going to be a PSI literacy night from 6:15 to 7:30 in the PSI Media Center where we're where they're going to be talking about literacy at PSI dual language immersion the react and our new literacy curriculum so um they also have child care if folks want to go and have little kids um they will provide child care so
071hope folks can can join in on one of those or both of those happenings for PS which night did you say Thursday I'm sorry I got it wrong because I'm just doing all school things this week all week so Thursday what time 6:15 at the PSI media center uh yeah I'm the uh liaison to the Susan L Grim PTO and they have a silent auction coming up um so if you happen to miss the the PSI one please engage with the Susan linger silent auction coming up March 16th through March 22nd um last year I think they raised about $10,000 um which is crazy um and they are still looking for donations uh so definitely check that out if you have a chance um they also had a um a book fair a couple weeks
072ago that I was able to work at and it was uh the most fun register work I've ever done uh the kids were just super excited to read and that was awesome to see um and they also had the chance to donate books to the teachers and they were super excited to do that so it was a really fun event to yeah I was going to say there there a couple things the PTO the the literacy thing I think has been a something that Dr Lafayette has been doing going around to each of the schools so I observed it at Aquilla I think and I know it's been going around so I'm really appreciative that we doing that and that people get to partake in that in their PTO meetings and that fundraising that that
073PTO fundraising is really important we we don't talk about it too much here in terms of that I was like even would we have somebody come and present but um when you're in the schools you learn how much that those different events really make a difference for field trips for um bringing in groups for doing all sorts of things that they do and so when people buy those auction items and start cranking them up and stuff that money goes right back into those schools in big meaningful ways and um it's it's just really powerful to see so um I'm liais on to Aquilla I was not able to attend to the pancake breakfast last week which was last weekend which was a bummer because that is one of my favorite things too um just pancakes
074and socializing and it's a it's a really fun event they have a PTO meeting coming up next Monday that I'll be attending um last Tuesday I attended amsd day at the capital and um one of the things about that is I appreciate amsd as people know as an organization for what they do to raise the issues of our schools and one of the big things that they were talking about is funding it sounds sad uh like we're being ungrateful but people are grateful for the money that we've gotten but we know that there's still issues and there's still some funding thing and they're being strong Advocates I don't know what's going to happen this year it's unlikely that we'll see significant sorts of increases in funding but um but there are um uh that they're
075they continue to bring that to the table they're continuing to focus on things like making some improvements to the read act that was a reason amsd meeting to was talking about some things related to the am to the read act and things that have learned in the past year I was able to meet with two of our legislators that day and I was grateful of that and one thing that I'll throw out there that I'm hopeful for is um you get to observe also people's legislative action committees different districts legislative action committees we have not had one for a while I don't know if ever but but it's been it's been a hard thing for us to organize but um but we can talk more about that sometime with members of the community in terms
076of like how can we continue to advocate for the things that we need and it's not just the board but it's community D and and there are some great models Hopkins and our neighboring districts that bring 20 30 people to to these legislators attend the the um meetings speak with their legislators and it can be really powerful and I've heard that from our legislators it's that they love it they love to hear from the community too about these issues and particularly when they're in groups like this I think too so just something for us to keep in mind um what did I okay no that was a note for myself um and then just a reminder tomorrow is our special board meeting for selection of our superintendent that is set to start at 3:30 um
077in this room here and uh that will begin promly at 3:30 and um I think we we prepare for this meeting in as many ways as we possibly can so I feel like we're um all set to go for tomorrow and um and hope that people will tune in and participate and excited to have our stakeholders be part of that tomorrow as well too so thank you for everybody for getting us to this point and really appreciate that and the to tomorrow's meeting all right with all of that then I will make a motion for yeah I'm going to make the motion to a turn and then we have a second from uh abim all those in favor say I I I any opposed I pass 7